


Animal Eyes

by reyofdarkness (mitslits)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, ambiguous (slightly angsty) ending, ambiguous forest spirit kylo, mentions of ambiguous consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 10:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15970775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitslits/pseuds/reyofdarkness
Summary: There are monsters in the forest, ChildCreatures in the darkAnd if they catch ahold of youThey’ll steal your beating heartIn which Kylo Ren may or may not be an ancient monster in the forest, and Rey has walked into a legend.





	Animal Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> many thanks to SaturnineFeline for beta'ing!

_There are monsters in the forest, Child_ _  
_ _Creatures in the dark_ _  
_ _And if they catch ahold of you_   
_They’ll steal your beating heart_

 _Beware their yellow eyes, my Dear_ _  
_ _For malice they conceal_ _  
_ _They’ll dig their claws inside your mind_   
_Confusing what is real_

 _To join your souls is their desire_ _  
_ _For they are oft alone_ _  
_ _They’ll slice your ribs and crawl inside_ _  
_ _And make of you a home_

Takodana isn’t like Jakku. It is fertile where Jakku is barren, green and growing to rival dust and dirt. On Jakku, things were as impermanent as the shifting sands. Days existed as days within themselves and nothing more. On Takodana, time has roots like the trees. On Takodana, time has given birth to stories.

Rey knows the stories. One doesn’t spend much time among the patrons of Maz’s bar without stumbling across them in one, or two, or three languages. She knows the tales of men with the yellow eyes and savagery of wolves; some say they can even take their shape, if pressed. She knows how they steal women, spirit them away into the night so that they become wild, like them, and are never seen again. She knows, too, that those creatures are very much like the man beside her.

She studies him as he sleeps. His hair is wild and untamed and black as the night sky, tumbling in tangles down to his shoulders. His broad chest moves up and down in the slow pattern of sleep. His eyes, framed by dark lashes, are closed now, but she remembers the look in them from the night before. They’d been the first thing she’d noticed about him, those eyes.

“You’re lost,” he’d said from the blurred shadows of the forest.

She had looked and found him staring at her, his eyes the same green-streaked brown as the forest ( _not,_ she thinks now, _yellow_ ). “I know my way,” she’d replied.

He hadn’t seemed to believe her. “Careful,” he’d said. “Those who get lost here tend to stay that way.”

Here they lie under the same blanket with the morning sun slipping over the horizon and coloring the world. They’re outside on the bank of a river that Rey doesn’t know the name of. It moves swiftly, chuckling merrily at her ignorance. She’s a stranger in this place.

Rey isn’t sure how they’d gotten from there to here, from eyes in dark shadows to legs tangled together. There’s an ache between hers that speaks to a carnal appetite, but to which of them had it belonged?

This time when she looks up at him, she finds him looking back. Those eyes, his eyes, are more green than brown in the morning light and softer than she’d thought.

“You’re wondering what I am,” he says with quirked lips. “If I’m one of the wolf-men you’ve heard so much about.”

“No,” Rey says quickly. She sits up, the blanket falling to reveal her bare shoulders, but it’s warm enough that she doesn’t shiver. “Those don’t exist. Or if they did,” she amends, “it was a long time ago.”

He stays where he is, wedges one arm behind his head to prop himself up as he surveys her. “You sound very sure of that.” His eyebrows arch slightly, as if to suggest that she shouldn’t be.

Where are her clothes? For a moment, Rey can’t find them. She knows she was wearing some when she entered the forest; they can’t have gone far. There, she spots them in a crumpled heap, half-hidden under the edge of the blanket. She gets to her feet and puts them on, her back to the man. “Of course I’m sure. Legends are legends. They belong in the past.” And yet something, some Jakkuan instinct to keep time unquantified, whispers that maybe there’s too fine a line between past and present to make such a claim.    

Behind her, she can hear the sounds of him getting to his feet and dressing in his own dark clothes. They’d been as black as the shadows, which was why she hadn’t seen him at first. The only reason she hadn’t seen him. “Someday,” he says as he comes up behind her and slips an arm around her waist, “this will be ‘a long time ago.’ I wonder what part of us people will deny then.”

Rey turns a flash of fear into irritation, peeling his arm away and stepping out of his reach. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I thought you said you knew the legends.” His eyes sparkle with amusement. “You’re a wild woman now. I’ve ruined you for domesticity.” He bares his teeth in a grin that could only be called wolfish, and a shudder trips down Rey’s spine.

“I… I want you to take me home.” Home? The word sounds suddenly foreign. The forest feels bigger than it did mere moments ago, as if it stretches on forever, eats up the whole of Takodana. There isn’t any civilization, any “home,” for her to return to. She is as feral as this stranger before her.

His expression sharpens, and he peers at her more closely. “Do you?” he asks.

Rey only hesitates for a second, but that is answer enough.

He takes her by the wrist, and she doesn’t protest as he leads her unerringly through the twisted forest. She doesn’t know their destination, but she feels like she hasn’t known anything since she stepped past the treeline.

They walk for what feels like forever, Rey’s bare feet seeming to catch every spur of rock and splintered stick. She can’t remember what happened to her shoes. She thinks they might be lying beside the river. It’s far too late to go back and check, so she bites the inside of her cheek until she tastes iron and soldiers on. By the time they reach a small, secluded hut almost hidden amongst the thick foliage, she’s leaving speckles of blood in their wake.

She doesn’t think he’s noticed until he pauses at the threshold, turns to face her, and sweeps her into his arms. “You should have said something,” he says with a nod at her battered feet.

Rey blinks up at him, momentarily too taken aback at being plucked off the ground to reply. She mumbles something unintelligible and waves off his concern.

Huffing, he steps over the threshold, and Rey has to wind her arms around his neck to keep from falling.

The hut is surprisingly tidy for all that it looks abandoned. Ivy crawls up the exterior walls, and the windows are dingy with dust, but the floors are clear of dirt and debris, and what the tiny bed set in one corner is made up neatly. A few dishes sit next to the sink as if someone had just been cleaning, but there’s no clothes, no fire crackling in the fireplace, nothing to indicate anyone but them has ever been there.

“What is this place?” Rey asks as he sets her down gently on the bed. The mattress is thin and about as hard as the bank they’d slept on the night before, but Rey doesn’t mind. Discomfort is second nature to her.

“Can you cook?” he asks as he kneels in front of the fireplace.

The question catches her by surprise. Surely wolf-men didn’t care to _cook_ their meals? Is it possible he’s human, like her? What in the galaxy has compelled her to let him take her away like this? It doesn’t escape her notice, either, that he’d only answered her question with a question. “Not really,” she admits, her voice thinner than she would like. Her eyes cut to the doorway, but the room is so tiny, he could practically reach out from his position in front of the fireplace and snatch her up before she got anywhere. She stays where she is, on high alert now.

He ignores her in favor of coaxing the fire to life, but when he’s got a decent blaze going, he glances back at her over his shoulder.

Rey has to bite back a gasp. _Just the flames,_ she tells herself. But for a second, she could have sworn his eyes gleamed yellow.

“I assume you can at least heat up water,” he says mildly, moving to grab an old-fashioned cooking pot. He arches an eyebrow, the pot cradled in his hands.

Rey simply nods.

He nods back. “Good. Then I’ll be back in a minute.” With that, he goes, disappearing into the forest that’s just beginning to darken as the sun slips below the horizon.

If she’s going to leave, this is her chance. Holding her breath, Rey eases out of the bed -- and instantly realizes she isn’t going anywhere. Even standing is painful, and she leaves red smudges on the hard-packed earth that any tracker worth their salt could follow. She sits back down, poised on the edge of the bed, her fingers digging into the covers. Whatever’s going on here, she’ll ride it out.

It isn’t long before he returns toting a pot full of water and with a rabbit slung over his shoulder. It’s clearly dead, and Rey watches crimson droplets fall from its pelt to the floor.

The flames have died down considerably while he was gone, so he sticks the pot over them, its tripod-esque legs digging into the dirt. “Don’t let that boil over,” he tells her.

She crawls her way over to the fire, watching him start to clean the rabbit from the corner of her eye. She can’t tell how it was killed -- her mind conjures up an image of him ripping into its throat with his teeth. Shaking that thought clear of her head, she sets her gaze on the water in the pot. So caught up does she get in watching that she jumps, startled, when he sets down a large metal basin beside her.

“For the water,” he says in response to her quizzical look. “It’s warm enough by now.”

Carefully, Rey lifts the pot and pours the water into the tub. A few flecks spray up, dotting her skin with burning kisses and setting her shivering. She keeps her hold on the handles until it’s empty, though, and sets it off to the side. “Ready,” she says, though she has no idea what for. She’d thought it might be for preparing the rabbit, but he seems to have that pretty well in hand already.

He pokes his finger in, shakes off a few droplets, and nods. “Stick your feet in,” he says. “It’ll help.”

Oh. Rey stares after him a minute, blinking as he returns to chopping up the rabbit. He seems to sense her attention and starts to turn, but she quickly whips around and plunges her feet into the water. It stings at first, enough to have her breath hissing through her teeth, but once she gets to used to it, she finds it does help. It soothes the aches she didn’t know she had and washes away the dried blood.

Rabbit skewered on a spit, he returns to the fire, setting it to cook. He only stays a moment before going back to the stove.

Rey splashes around in the water a bit, childish, and she blushes when he comes back to the fire, mouth quirked in a smile. “Sorry,” she says sheepishly. She’s splashed water onto the floor, but he doesn’t seem to mind, only kneels in front of the basin and plucks one of her feet out of the water. She watches with wide eyes as he lathers up the soap he’d retrieved and starts scrubbing away the dirt.

“Tell me if I hurt you this time,” he says, glancing up at her meaningfully through his eyelashes.

“You don’t have to do that,” she says faintly as she fights the urge to pull away from him.

He makes no reply beyond a slight shrug and keeps at it until her skin gleams wet in the firelight. “There,” he says and releases her. He checks on the rabbit as Rey towels herself dry.

They eat in silence, Rey checking for any sign of disgust that he might be hiding. Surely, if he is a wolf-man, dining thus will be distasteful. She sees nothing, yet her fear has faded. If he meant her any real harm, he would have done something by now, she tells herself. Here she is, sheltered, washed clean, fed, and worrying over nothing except not knowing her way out. The longer she stays, the less sure she is that she even wants to leave. There is a certain appeal in having no responsibility but being alive. She might not really be a wild woman, but she can see what would draw someone to leave everything else behind.

She sneaks glances at the man beside her as she picks at her meal. Perhaps the wolf-men had something to do with it too...   

“Lie with me,” she whispers that night after the rabbit has been eaten, the dishes washed, and the fire burned down to embers. She still can’t remember whose lust had driven their first night together, but this time she is well-assured it is her own.

He undresses her with quick, sure hands and she does the same to him, though hers linger on the hard lines of his muscles. There is a bed, yes, but they use the floor. If she is going to be a wild woman, Rey thinks, she might as well embrace it.

She wakes in the bed. She wakes alone.

In the morning light, reality seems to set in. Rey has been outstandingly foolish. There is no such thing as wolf-men. What had she thought, that she’d walked from her own time into a legend? She’d walked into a strange man’s arms is what she’d done, and now he’s left her. How many women has he seduced in the same manner?

Disgusted with herself, Rey gathers up her clothes and hurriedly puts them on. She’s lost, but she’ll figure things out on her own, _without_ the help of any strange men, no matter what creature they resemble.

The door opens and he enters, slinging something to the floor at her feet.

Rey blinks down at what turns out to be her shoes.  

“Hope you don’t mind rabbit again,” he says, offloading the catch from around his shoulders. “There wasn’t much out.”

Rey takes in his dew-dropped hair, the slight flush of red to his cheeks that comes from vigorous exercise. He must have been up early to make it all the way to the river and back already. “Let me do it,” she says as he sets about preparing the rabbit.

He pauses, blade in hand. “You don’t know how to cook,” he points out.

“I can try anyways,” Rey says, her own hand extended expectantly. “Please.” For a second, she’s sure he will deny her, but he only hands over the skinning knife with a quiet sigh.

“As you will.”

Rey makes a fantastic mess of it, but she manages to get enough meat off the bone for them both to eat their fill. It’s another silent meal, and again, Rey can find no sign that he is anything other than human. It maddens her, this inability to determine something so seemingly simple.

She asks him as she’s putting on her shoes. “Are you going to tell me what you are?”

He’s standing by the door, waiting for her. “What do you mean?” he asks.

Rey rolls her eyes at him and stands. “Are you one of the wolf-men, or are you human?”

He regards her with suppressed amusement, mirth glittering in his eyes. “I thought you’d determined wolf-men don’t exist.”

She could hit him. She makes a move to do just that, but he stiffens, head whipping towards the window, and she pauses. For the first time, he’s lost his calm veneer, his nostrils flared, his eyes wide in something that looks an awful lot like fear. It chills Rey to the bone. “What-”

She’s interrupted by a long, ululating call -- the howl of a wolf. It’s an ironic end to their conversation, and Rey would almost be amused if he didn’t seem so unsettled.

“We have to go,” he says. “It isn’t safe here.”

Rey wants to ask why -- surely they’re safe as long as they stay indoors -- but he’s already stepping outside, leaving her little choice but to follow. She bumps into his back barely a step out the door. Her irritated exclamation dies on her tongue as she sees the reason for his immobility.

Wolves wait for them. One is a deep russet, its lips drawn back in a slavering snarl, tail crooked in warning. The other is silver and massive, closer in size to a horse than a dog. It shows no outward sign of hostility, but something in its ice-blue eyes has Rey taking a step back.

“To the river, Rey,” he says. His eyes are fixed on the wolves, and he hasn’t moved a muscle since she rammed into him. “Follow it downstream, and it will lead you home. Go. Now.”

“I’m not leaving you here alone,” she says. What she can do against wolves, she doesn’t know, but how can he ask her to abandon him like that?

“Go,” and his voice is close enough to a growl that Rey backs off.

The silver one’s eyes flash to her, and that’s enough to set Rey running. She crashes through the trees, desperately trying to remember the path she and Ben had taken the day before. Nothing looks familiar. What’s worse, she can hear thudding footfalls behind her. She doesn’t dare risk a look over her shoulder, but she expects at any moment to feel teeth tear into her, claws ripping at her heels.

The pawsteps grow louder, louder, and then there’s an unholy snarling and the sound of bodies crashing through the forest.

Unable to help herself, Rey glances back, but she can see nothing but trembling leaves. The snarling grows louder, to a crescendo that ends in a wounded yelp. Then: silence. Rey can’t afford to slow down.

She emerges from the treeline with pounding heart and aching legs, barely managing to stumble to a halt before she plunges into the river. She doubles over, hands on her knees, and sucks in great, gasping breaths. There haven’t been any sounds of pursuit since that terrible wail, but it’s with no small measure of fear that she turns to face the trees.

Nothing. She sees nothing but leaves swaying in a gentle breeze. Hears nothing but the water babbling over stones. Feels nothing but the hollow thud of her heart against her ribcage. When it has calmed somewhat, she begins to make her way back along the river.   

It seems an age before she reaches the bend that takes her away from the forest and towards Maz’s. The edifice rises from the ground, as solid and true as if it has always been there, and yet Rey has the distinct impression that it had sprung up only seconds before, as she’d rounded the turn. A ridiculous thought, and a fleeting one. She squares her shoulders and marches forward, refusing to look back at the trees. That night, she dreams of dark hair and yellow eyes. She never sees the man again.  


End file.
